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Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, Paul Berkemeier Architects and Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture
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Lippmann Associates, Richard Rogers Partnership, Martha Schwartz and Lend Lease
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Lend Lease design, Taylor Cullity Lethlean, JBA Urban Planning and The People for Places and Spaces
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Project, Hargreaves Associates and Morphosis
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PTW, EDAW and Advanced Environmental Concepts
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A selection of images
from the winning
scheme by Hill Thalis,
Paul Berkemeier
Architects and Jane
Irwin Landscape
Architecture.
Plan.
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A sketch of the
“drunken piles”,
hardwood timber piles
that would lose balance
in the harbour’s tidal
waters.
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Tidal wind
and solar power are
harnessed to make a row
of tidal cranes.
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Elevational view of
the model.
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Bird’s-eye
view of the model,
showing site strategy
and urban context.
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The landscape-driven
entry from
Project, Hargreaves
Associates and
Morphosis.
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The
scheme from PTW,
EDAW and Advanced
Environmental Concepts
aims to create a flexible
space that is informed
by local cultural values
and memories of Millers
Point and Sydney.
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The urban
waterfront design from
Lend Lease design,
Taylor Cullity Lethlean,
JBA Urban Planning and
The People for Places
and Spaces.
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The
Lippmann Associates,
Richard Rogers
Partnership, Martha
Schwartz and Lend
Lease proposal
integrates water and
vegetation throughout.
The plan and section
show the scheme’s
island precinct.
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The lure of scale. Elizabeth Mossop reviews the outcomes of Sydney’s controversial East Darling Harbour competition.
As designers it is very hard to resist the lure of urban
redevelopment on the scale of East Darling Harbour’s
22 hectares, but before looking at the competition and
its outcomes it is important to question some of its
underlying premises. Why does all waterfront renewal
in Sydney have to be for residential and commercial
use only? Will the city be improved when the
waterfront is primarily residential? Can Botany Bay
support further port development without unacceptable
environmental degradation? Does it make sense to ship
goods to Port Kembla that then have to be trucked to
Sydney? Why couldn’t the East Darling Harbour site
be redeveloped as a world-beating eco-industrial park,
with a working port facility, commercial use and
increased open space, connected into an integrated
system of transit?
Underlying planning decisions of this kind require a
longer political view than is currently being exhibited,
and the ability to resist the immediate financial returns
that can spell career success for individual politicians
but diminish the public benefit in the long term.
If we look at the competition as it was framed, the
finalists and the brief also need to be seen in the
context of Sydney’s earlier waterfront redevelopments –
Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Cockle Bay, King Street
Wharf, Pyrmont and Woolloomooloo Bay – as well as
earlier waterfront developments and proposals, such as
Seidler’s for Blues Point and the long-established
Domain and Botanic Gardens. These earlier works
suggest the vital importance of connection to the urban
context, integration with viable public transit,
incremental development and the importance of a
strong public domain. They also point to the need to
find identity for major developments beyond theming.
The value of the Domain and Botanic Gardens, and the
headlands in Sydney Harbour National Park, show that
it is impossible to overestimate the significance of
providing major urban parkland to the future
inhabitants of the city. The winning scheme, from Hill
Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, Paul Berkemeier
Architects and Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture,
deals with many of these issues very effectively.
A key issue in the evaluation of the competition
results has been the question of how the strategic
plan can be translated into reality, its “deliverability”.
This seems to have been one of the major determinants
in the success of the winning scheme. Given the
Australian track record on the implementation of
visionary design ideas, and the conservative design
climate prevailing, perhaps we should be totally
focused on this factor – its ability to be implemented
in this place and at this time. There seems to be a
parallel with the pragmatic approach taken with
many of the Olympic projects, where a conservative
financial package often bested design quality and
environmental innovation.
Perhaps this is the price of living in the real world –
we have to abandon youthful ideals and can no longer
hold out for visionary solutions – but it also smacks of
a lack of faith in the ability of designers to really solve
complex and intractable urban problems innovatively.
Perhaps it also reflects the concentration of bureaucrats
and other non-designers on the jury.
Alternatively, it could be argued that, given our
propensity to grind distinctive and innovative design
down to mediocrity, and to kill bureaucratically the
unique elements of major projects in the name of
“market forces”, we should select schemes where the
design ideas are robust enough to survive this apparently
inevitable process. It is incumbent on the design
community to fight this powerful undertow through
public discourse and better communication of ideas.
The finalists illustrate a spectrum of design
approaches in terms of expressive form-making and at
the scale at which design intention becomes apparent.
These range from big gestural moves at the urban scale,
as in the Project/Hargreaves/Morphosis and the
Lippmann/Rogers/Schwartz/Lend Lease schemes, to
proposals where this may emerge at the site scale, as in
the Hill Thalis/Berkemeier/Irwin scheme. The jury and
some commentators seem to suggest that the former
approach is less workable than the latter, but this
precludes many exciting alternatives. If all new urban
form is to be generated only by response to the existing
context we will never be able to fully take advantage of
opportunities missed in the past, new technological
wizardry or new conceptions of city life.
The brief refers to the unique character of the city
and of the site a number of times. Entrants were asked
to “capture a sense of what Sydney is now and what is
appropriate development for the city in the 21st
century” as well as to “recognise the unique qualities,
significance and prominence of the site on Sydney
Harbour and use buildings and landscape to capture
and enhance them”. It is difficult, however, to read a
tangible sense of site and place into most of the
finalists’ schemes. This relates to the scale of the project
and is perhaps inevitable given the requirements and
limitations of the competition. But I believe that quality
and character should be more important in determining
the success or failure of individual proposals.
Sydney’s character is defined by its landscape. The
city’s water edges – harbour, beaches, rivers or bays –
compose a unique and varied urban landscape. The
significant presence of “natural” bushland and parkland
throughout the city, especially on headlands in close
proximity to the CBD, reinforces the landscape
presence. The other unique aspects of Sydney’s
character relate to the importance of outdoor living,
sports and recreation and a certain playfulness and
irreverence in the most successful public spaces.
The competition brief recognized the real opportunity
for the proposals to create major new urban parkland.
As the city becomes denser, housing ever-increasing
numbers of residents, workers and tourists, the value
of urban open space increases exponentially,
particularly on the waterfront. The future significance
of the parkland is not only about size, although a
certain generosity of scale is mandatory. More
important is the quality of the parkland, the character
of its spaces, its accessibility and connection, its
activation by a mix of uses, and so on. These issues of
quality and character suggest the desirability of strongly
iconic landscape moves.
The finalists range from contextual urbanism to big
architectural moves to landscape dominance. The
winning scheme from Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban
Projects, Paul Berkemeier Architects and Jane Irwin
Landscape Architecture is perhaps the most urban of
the finalists, being driven by an intelligent
understanding of the urban context. The clarity of the
plan is very strong, with its wedge of development
anchored in the CBD and the complementary wedge
of parkland expanding to the headland. It is a very
workable solution and there is great potential in the
development of the public open space. This is all to the
good, as it seems to be crying out for more flamboyant
treatment of the water and its edge, as well as greater
amplification of the headland within the major open
park to the north.
Also strongly contextual in form but more
architectural, with its great wedge of buildings on the
waterfront, the scheme from PTW, EDAW and
Advanced Environmental Concepts fails to capitalize
on the site’s potential by removing the major linear park
from the waterfront. The repetitive nature of its urban
form, while seductive in plan, suggests a potentially
monotonous experience. The separation of the wall of
buildings from the city fabric also casts doubt on the
ability of the development to be vibrant economically
and socially. There are some attractive moves, such as
the Millers Point Meanders, but the landscape seems
somewhat generic and dominated by the architecture.
The most architectural of the finalists is the scheme
by Project, Hargreaves Associates and Morphosis,
although the sheer scale of the open space is
magnificent, with 90 percent of the site covered by
park. The boldness of the building forms creates a
very idiosyncratic urban pattern in the residential
district. This dominates and seemingly detracts from
the urban quality of the southern precinct. This is a
risky competition strategy in Sydney because it
suggests the need for one architect to realize the
residential development, and the hand of a single
development entity to implement the vision. However,
the central sports park in proximity to the CBD suggests
the potential to spur surrounding development and
really enliven a new city precinct. The further
development of the landscape could make this a most
compelling scheme.
The animation of the Lend Lease design/Taylor
Cullity Lethlean/JBA Urban Planning/The People for
Places and Spaces project has a lovely textural quality
that emphasizes the integration of water and vegetation
through the precinct. The singularity of the waterfront
promenade and its artificial theming is a little too
resort-like, and reminiscent of Darling Harbour,
requiring greater connection into the urban fabric.
Subsuming much of the built programme within the
landscape in the northern half of the site is an
interesting strategy that ultimately seems to work
against the creation of a really spectacular urban park.
The Lippmann Associates/Richard Rogers
Partnership/Martha Schwartz/Lend Lease proposal is
great fun. Characterized by Martha Schwartz’s
distinctive patterning and form-making, the landscape
and water define three distinct site zones: a highly
urban link to the CBD, a central park flanked by
housing and full of diverse programme, and a major
recreational beach park to the north. Substantial bodies
of water connect the project to the harbour and support
water-based activity, referencing many of the city’s most
loved outdoor places. This scheme was commended by
the jury and, while there are clearly technical problems
with some aspects of the proposal, in many ways seems
a more obvious winner because of the vitality of its
programming and the potential of its urban landscapes.
The real test will be whether the competition leads us
to the most successful redevelopment of this site, and
whether the winning scheme will be robust enough to
withstand the mediocratizing forces that will be
applied at every step of the approval, development and
implementation processes. But if you believe in the
transformative power of physical design to dramatically
change cities for the better and the responsibility of
public projects to take a leading role in design and
environmental innovation, then perhaps the jury could
have been more courageous.
ELIZABETH MOSSOP IS DIRECTOR AND PROFESSOR OF
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY.
THE FULL ENTRIES CAN BE SEEN ONLINE AT
WWW.EASTDARLINGHARBOUR.COM.AU
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